DON BELL REPORTS

A WEEKLY COMMENTARY

Year Twenty-One ... Number Nineteen ... May 10, 1974

Table of Contents

THE CONTRIVED EVOLUTION

OF REGIONAL GOVERNMENT

PART TWO

GROWTH OF THE COMPACT THEORY

Since it became necessary to refer to words and words spoken or written in the past, it also seemed fitting and appropriate that we quote directly from the better authors. We preface each quotation with the date, and append each with the quotation's source:

December 16, 1773:-
"... the progress of events served to fix attention more and more on Boston; and its patriots could see in expressions from other colonies that they were relied on to act with firmness and efficiency...

"Business in town was generally suspended. The inhabitants in the morning flocked to 'The Old South Meeting House,' still standing. They were joined by people from the country for twenty miles around. The gathering consisted of nearly seven thousand, -- merchants, yeoman, gentlemen, -- respectable for their rank, and venerable for their age and character....
"About six o'clock .... Samuel Adams then said: 'This meeting can do nothing more to save the country.' A war-whoop was now sounded at the door, which was answered from the galleries. The shouting became tremendous....

"As the party from whom rose the war-whoop passed the church, numbers naturally followed on; and the throng went directly to Griffin's Wharf, now Liverpool at the foot of Purchase Street of which were moored the three vessels which contained the tea. A resolute band had guarded them day and night. John Hancock was one fo the guard this evening. The party in disguise, -- probably his friend Joseph Warren was among them, --whopping like Indians, went on board the vessels, and, warning their officers and those of the customhouse to keep out of the way, unlaid the hatches, hoisted the chests of tea on deck, cut them open, and hove the tea overboard....

"The local exultation was extreme. 'You cannot imagine,' Samuel Adams wrote, 'the height of joy that sparkes the eyes and animates the countenances as well as the hearts of all we meet on this occasion.' 'This,' John Adams said, 'is the most magnificent movement of all. There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effort of the patriots, that I greatly admire.' 'We,' John Scollay, one of the selectmen and an actor, wrote, 'do console ourselves that we have acted constitutionally, --namely, did no more than was necessary, under the circumstances, to defeat the design of landing the teas.

"The exultation was scarcely less outside of Massachusetts .... The Tea Act had the effect to make this question of taxation a living issue .... The popular leaders now sought to give direction to a great movement or to take advantage of a happy disposition in the public mind and extend the organization of committees of correspondence.... The popular party, in their several municipalities, proceeded independently in forming committees...."

(Above excerpts are from Richard Frothingham's "The Rise of the Republic," 1890)

March 31, 1774:-
"In retaliation against the Boston Tea Party, Parliament passed a series of statutes known as the Intolerable Acts. The most oppressive of these was the Boston Port Act, March 31, 1774, which closed the port of Boston to all shipping until reparations had been made to the East India Company.

"...By the spring of 1774, it had become clear that the problems of individual colonies that the problems of individual colonies were really the problems of all. United action by the colonies was necessary. One writer to the Boston Evening Post said: 'It is now time for the colonies to have a Grand Congress to complete the system for the American Independent Commonwealth, as it is so evident that no other plan will secure the rights of this people from rapacious and plotting tyrants.' One of the first bodies to propose the calling of a continental congress was a town meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, on May 17, 1774. Virginia was the first colony to make such a proposal." (From "Sources of Our Liberties," American Bar Foundation, 1959).

September 5, 1774:-
"Out of protest meetings held in state houses, courthouses, and stores at country crossroads came a demand for a congress to meet at Philadelphia in the fall of the year, there 'to consult upon the present unhappy State of the Colonies....'

"On September 5, 1774, fifty-five delegates representing all the colonies except Georgia opened the First Continental Congress in Carpenter's Hall .... Even more important than the declarations and resolutions was the Continental Association, by which the delegates agreed that their constituents would import no more British goods, deny themselves all luxuries, and encourage their own manufactures until the mother country should redress their grievances. In this way they forged into a national weapon coercive measures that had been so far only local and unorganized, and took a long step on the road to independence."(from "By These Words," Rand McNally, 1954.)

April 19, 1775:-
"In mid-April the British military governor of Massachusetts heard that the colonists had collected a supply of muskets and gunpowder at Concord. On the evening of the eighteenth he ordered a detachment of regulars to march out from Boston and seize the supplies. And that was the night when Paul Revere, anxiously watching the belfry of the Old North Church, saw a single light -- 'one if by land, and two if by see' -- and leaped on his horse to warn the countryside that the British were marching. The next day, at Lexington and Concord, men and boys... died... and exacted a toll from His Majesty's redcoats far heavier than they themselves paid." (from "By Those Words," Rand McNally, 1954)

May 10, 1775:-
"So the members of the Continental Congress met again -- at Philadelphia, as they had planned... In the ears of the delegates rang the words of Patrick Henry, uttered when the news of Lexington reached Virginia:

"....If we wish to be free.... we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left to us! They tell us, sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make proper use of means which the God of Nature hath placed in our power, .... Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave....

"It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace--but these is no peace. The war is actually begun! the next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethern are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
(Excerpted from George Bancroft's "History of the United States," 1898)

June 24, 1775:-
"The (Virginia) Bill of Rights was drafted by George Mason, a well-to-do planter of Fairfax County, Virginia .... Mason came from retirement to fill a vacancy in the Virginia Convention caused by George Washington's appointment as commander in chief of the Continential Army ... A committee of twenty-eight delegates was appointed to draft the declaration and constitution. It was headed by Archibald Cary and included Patrick Henry, Edmund Randolph, James Madison and Mason. Mason assumed the leadership in drafting the documents."
(from "Sources of Our Liberties")

VIRGINIA BILL OF RIGHTS
(This is your editor writing: we have ceased from quotations for a time).

In this series of letters, we have referred to three traditional views of government that have been held by Americans: the Compact Theory, the Continental Theory and the International Theory. And it is the Virginia Bill of Rights which provides us with a clear and complete explanation of what the Compact Theory meant to the Americans of that period in history.

When the thirteen Colonies decided that they must become independent and sovereign States, there came the necessity of writing and adopting State Constitutions. Virginia's document was in three parts: there was the Bill of Rights, then came a preamble to the Constitution, written by Thomas Jefferson and the model which Jefferson expanded and presented to the Continental Congress as his initial draft of the Declaration of Independence; and finally there was the Constitution itself.

The Virginia Bill of Rights exerted a direct influence on similar bills of rights adopted by six other States; while the States that did not preface their new Constitutions with a bill of rights, were careful to have the principles enunciated therein within the body of the fundamental law of the land. Even more important: The Virginia Bill of Rights was the forerunner of the first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States; and the Federal Constitution would never have been ratified if those ten amendments -- now known as the Bill of Rights -- had not been appended thereto.

Since the Virginia Bill of Rights is such a clear and complete statement of the Compact Theory which guided the majority of the Founders of our Nation, it seems appropriate that the most important provisions of that document be published again in this letter, lest we forget the civic foundations upon which our Republic was built:

A declaration of rights made by the representatives of the good people of Virginia, assembled in full and free convention; which rights do pertain to them and their posterity, as the basics and foundation of government.

SECTION 1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

SEC. 2. That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them.

SEC. 3. That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection and security of the people, nation or community; of all the various models and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, adn is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration; and that, when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.

SEC. 4. That no man, or set of men, are entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community, but in consideration of public services; which, not being descendible, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator or judge to be hereditary.

SEC. 5. That the legislative and executive powers of the State should be separate and distinct from the judiciary; and that the members of the two first may be restrained from oppression, by feeling and participating the burdens of the people, they should, at fixed periods, be reduced to a private station, return into that body, from which they were originally taken, and the vacancies be supplied by frequent, certain and regular elections, in which all, or any part of the former members, to be again eligible, or ineligible, as the laws shall direct.

SEC. 6. That elections of members to serve as representatives of the people, in assembly, ought to be free; and that all men, having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with, and attachment to, the community, have the right of suffrage and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses, without their own consent, or that of their representatives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not, in like manner, assembled, for the public good.

SEC. 7. That all power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, by any authority, without consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights, and ought not to be exercised.

SEC. 8. That in all capital or criminal prosecutions a man hath a right to demand the cause and nature of his accusation, to be confronted with the accusers and witnesses, to call for evidence in his favor, and to a speedy trial by an impartial jury of twelve men of his vicinage, without whose unanimous consent he cannot be found guilty; nor can he be compelled to give evidence against himself; that no man be deprived of his liberty, except by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.

SEC. 9. That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment be inflicted.

SEC. 10. That general warrants, whereby an officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committeed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offence is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are greivous and oppressive, and ought not to be granted.

SEC. 11. That in controversies respecting property, and in suits between man and man, the ancient trial by jury is preferable to any other, and ought to be held sacred.

SEC. 12. That the freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.

SEC. 13. That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free State; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided, as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict obedience to, and governed by, the civil power.

SEC. 14. That the people have a right to uniform government; and, therefore, that no government separate from, or independent of the government of Virginia, ought to be erected or established within the limits thereof.

SEC. 15. That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.

SEC. 16. That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love and charity towards each other.

The Virginia Bill of Rights was adopted by the House of Burgesses meeting at Richmond on June 12, 1776. Five days earlier at Philadelphia where the Continental Congress was in session, Richard Henry Lee -- of the Virginia delegation -- introduced a resolution declaring that the Colonies ought to announce to the world that they were acting as free and independent States. This led to the selection of a committee, headed by Virginian Thomas Jefferson, which would prepare a Declaration of Independence; and that historic document was signed and published on July 4, 1776.

However, more than a year before this -- on May 31, 1775, the people of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, published a set of resolves wherein they declared that: "We conceive that all Laws and Commissions confirmed by, or derived from the Authority of the King or Parliament, are annulled and vacated, and the former civil Constitution of these Colonies for the present wholly suspended." The resolves declared that all legislative and executive powers were vested in the provincial congress of each Colony "under the Direction of the Great Continental Congress."

Mecklenburg Resolves did not declare complete independence from Great Britain, but they did set the stage for the Declaration of Independence which was to follow.

Next there was needed, in the legal sense, Articles of Confederation. On the same day that a committee was appointed to frame the Declaration of Independence, another committee was appointed to "prepare and digest the form of a confederation to be entered into between these colonies." The Articles of Confederation which resulted was agreed to by Congress on November 15, 1777, was not approved by all the States until March 1, 1781, but Congress used it as a guide before that time.

By the Articles of Confederation the States established a Federal Legislature, but no Executive Department and no Federal Judiciary; all soveriengty was retained by the people and the States. This was the Compact Theory in practice. The Continental Theory, on the other hand, demanded that all soveriengty be surrendered to the Central Government, with an all-powerful Chief Executive and Judiciary.

Conflict was inevitable, and compromise essential. The Constitution with its Bill of Rights was such a compromise, creating a Republic -- if we could keep it.

DON BELL REPORTS & CLOSER-UP are privately circulated Newsletters accenting the Christian American point of view. Complete service: $24 per year. Extra copies: 10 cents each. Please address all orders to: DON BELL REPORTS, P.O. Box 2223, Palm Beach, Florida 33480

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